On Pink Hats and Things With ‘W’ After Them

“Ideally, the something-for-everyone long tail of the Internet would include places for us to find smart, funny sports coverage that’s obscured neither by gratuitous shots of cleavage nor fluffy slideshows of the cutest sports bras we can wear to control our own. And maybe espnW will evolve into that place. But the first impressions the website’s been making have not been encouraging. By telling USA Today that espnW would be a site “where we talk about women finding self-esteem in sports and about getting a pedicure,” ESPN Vice-President Laura Gentile raised the eyebrows of female fans wary of the same old marketing ploys. An early planning retreat for espnW seemed a parody of itself, with the New York Times reporting that scheduled events included “sunrise yoga and a private Jewel concert.” — Our buddy Katie Baker opines on the state of the female sports fan and how ESPN’s new women’s site, espnW, fits in to that so far mostly “bedazzled” sphere of sports coverage.